Edinburgh Lifestyle & Travel Blog

Feeling hangry? It’s time for brunch. Run out of holiday days but don’t fancy a staycation? Then it’s bleisure time. 2018 saw the rise and rise of business and leisure travel combined with the arrival of bleisure, there’s a new way of thinking about work trips and corporate travel.

What is bleisure?

Travel for business is no longer only a hamster-wheel approach of meet – sleep – repeat. Bleisure travel embraces the idea of adding some leisure days to the end of your business trip. For millennial travellers, bleisure is fast becoming the new normal, but with so many benefits to this re-thinking of business trips, it’s far from millennial exclusive.

Travel giant Expedia’s recent survey in North America found that on average, business travellers were adding 2.6 holiday days to business trips of 3.7 days. And, nearly 80% of business travellers included in the survey stayed in the same city for their business trip and their leisure stay. In essence, visitors heading for a Monday to Thursday work trip were taking the Friday through to Sunday as a holiday, and using it as an opportunity for down-time, alone-time or family-time.

Bleisure travel is also impacting how job-hunters in some sectors are choosing a prospective employer. If your work includes some, or a lot of travelling, the idea of being able to combine it with some global exploring and potentially to bring your family with, then that takes some of the boring out of business travel.

Bleisure Benefits

Bleisure travel has potential benefits ranging from wellness to global awareness. Here’s some of the top bleisure benefits.

1.Bleisure benefits the employee. Not only does it make travelling away from home and family a little less painful, it allows the traveller the opportunity to actually experience the city. If business travel means flying in and meeting in a stuffy airport hotel conference room, think again. Hotel’s like Haymarket Hub Hotel encourage Edinburgh-exploring and provide comfortable rooms for a great night’s sleep. A bleisure trip lets you see the city highlights, like Edinburgh Castle and The Royal Mile, as well as enjoying a guilt free whisky tour or a day on the links where it’s not all about impressing your prospective client or schmoozing your boss. With a double room at the Haymarket Hub Hotel it’s easy to bring along your significant other for the weekend or book an extra standard twin and bring along the kids.

2.Bleisure benefits the business. Studies have shown that employees who take regular vacations have lower risk of heart disease, lower rates of depression, and decreased stress. For the business, that translates into happier employees who have fewer sick days and more energy for improved productivity. Plus, employee perks like paid vacation days or even including the vacation days as part of the business trip tend to be more loyal and happier.

3. Bleisure benefits the city. Extending a business trip into a holiday gives the city a chance to show their best side and not only to be judged by the quality of the Wi-Fi in the conference rooms and the speed of their airport shuttle pick up. Bleisure let’s a city like Edinburgh a chance to show off their cobbled streets and coffee shops.

4. Bleisure benefits the bottom line. Both for the traveller and the business, bleisure can even result in cost saving. Pushing a return flight onto a Sunday can drop the overall price of a flight ticket (especially if it’s a long-haul journey) which then offsets the cost of an extra night in the hotel. The employee gets the benefit of a flight and room already paid for by work, so bringing their partner with them means they get a holiday and pay less for it.

Increased employee satisfaction, more time exploring the destination city and minimal cost increases offset by healthier and happier employees who spend less time away from family. Bleisure is best.